From
“Your Daily Dose of Vegan Outreach!”
& Jack Norris RD Blogs

Notes
from Our Members

A
University of Georgia student is engrossed
in seeing what modern agribusiness hides.

At Phoenix’s
pride festival, the gang and I
reached over 3,000 folks. We met numerous vegetarians
and vegans and many people who wanted to cut
down their meat consumption. One girl said she
had received a leaflet at First Friday a year
ago and it changed her life: she went vegetarian
and is now making efforts to go vegan. She’s
moving north to Flagstaff soon and she said,
“Maybe I can start this kind of stuff (leafleting)
up there.” Also met another couple very
eager to help out; they got Guides
and AMLs.—Jeff Boghosian, 4/17/11

Reached
over 830 students at the University
of Miami. A girl came out of a building, held
up a leaflet and said, “There’s a lot of
talk going on about this right now in the lab.”
She then gave thumbs up and thanked me for being
there.—Lana Smithson, 2/16/11

Met many
vegetarians at Georgia Tech. The
students were very friendly, and I had great
reception. One said he got the leaflet before
and it influenced him to move toward a much
more veg-friendly lifestyle; he shared it with
friends who went veg after reading it!—Brian W, 4/14/11

Cassandra
and I had an amazingly positive day at
Bronx Community College, with tons of people
stopping to ask questions, including professors
asking for extra lit and getting our contact
info for class presentations. Take rate was
awesome and many students said they are learning
about this in class.—Eileen Botti, 4/14/11

Loren Hart shines a light on truth and
compassion at Guilford College.

At Purdue,
uncannily good news came from three fraternity
brothers who stated that they were vegetarian
and had sent the Vegan Outreach website link
to their frat brothers. Back when I was in school
’89–’93 at UIUC, fraternity people were really
the last ones one might expect to care about
this issue. All that has changed.—Joe Espinosa, 4/14/11

Leafleting
was easy and pleasant at Western
Illinois University. I met a number of vegetarians,
and saw even more people intently reading the
booklet.—Darina Smith, 2/21/11

Windchill
of 8° at Cornell, but Brian,
John, and I set a new record there, reaching
1,740 students. Went inside to warm up and immediately
saw two students sitting in the hallway, reading
their booklets. We win again! —Vic Sjodin, 2/21/11

I was so
nervous about leafleting by myself,
and I don’t know any other vegans, but I finally
decided that I sat on these pamphlets for long
enough! I started leafleting today, hitting
Westmoreland County Community College. It was
a very positive experience, and I got some great
feedback. More will be following soon!—Michelle L, 2/23/11

Andrea Cimino focuses on helping the animals
at the University of Mary Washington.

Nina Vecchi
and I had a terrific day at UMass
Lowell yesterday, despite the freezing weather.
Students were generally very polite and receptive
and I heard several positive comments such as,
“Yeah! I DO want to help animals.”
and “Hey, we were just talking about this!”
Also met three vegans and had a long chat at
lunch with a student who is anxious to continue
VO leafleting on campus.—Jo Tyler, 2/24/11

The -5° windchill at
Washington State made it too cold to leaflet outside. I decided to
try inside the entrance to the student union
building – and everything changed. Students
were super receptive and the take rate became
really high, there were a lot of positive comments.
It seemed that whenever there were a few people
who didn’t take one, there would be someone
who’d say, “I’ll take one,”
and restart the take pattern. Best moment of
the day: when I was checking trash cans , there
was a table of guys looking through one of the
pamphlets; they were pointing out pictures to
each other and talking about them. —Amanda Schemkes, 2/25/11

I was extremely
grateful to Dan for joining me
yesterday at Montgomery College; he is a dear
friend to me and the animals. Two separate individuals
came up to tell me how interesting the booklet
was. One young lady came up to show me her falafel
sandwich, mentioning that she had previously
experimented with veg eating, but slipped more
and more, mentioning how easy eating meat can
be. She said the booklet reminded her that
it is likewise easy to opt for veggie meals,
which is what she did today, completely as a
result of being leafleted. I gave her a Guide;
it sounds like she’ll be opting from more veg
meals in the future.

Tonight, while giving
my advocacy talk, I debuted my new slide (right) in which I mentioned that the evolutionary
adaptation that we have been striving towards
since crawling out of the swamp of life has
been the opposable thumb for the sake of leafleting.—Jon Camp, 2/18/11

Reached
about 6,000 students on my week-long
tour. Life on the road can be hard, but it was
well worth it. I know many were influenced and
will make some changes. Lots reading, sharing,
talking to each other, expressed concern, and
a handful said that they would change and even
go veg – many more will without ever telling
us.—Casey Constable, 2/25/11

Vegan
Outreach is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
dedicated to reducing the suffering of
farmed animals by promoting informed,
ethical eating.